Apple Phone Support Hack: Curse Your Way Out Of Voice Menu Hell

Proving once again that vinegar catches more flies than honey (really), it was recently discovered by a reddit user by the name of floppybutton that Apple’s Phone Tech Support contains hidden verbal cue words that you can activate when you’re stuck in menus. You might know some of the generic tech support power words for getting instantly transferred to a human, like “agent”, but if that doesn’t work, there’s another set that will work with Apple’s tech support: you might know them from George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.

According to floppybutton, the Redditor was trying to order a new keyboard for an old broken laptop, but wound up in phone menu hell. Here’s what happened next:

After exploring every option possible in the machine based list, I eventually got frustrated and used a few choice words that triggered something in the computer I was talking to.

It cut itself off in mid-sentence, apologized, and in about 10 more seconds I was talking to an Apple tech. Unfortunately for me, he couldn’t help me order my new keyboard. At least I got the answer that they aren’t made anymore, instead of having to drive over an hour to the closest Apple store for the same information.

These profanity-based cue words are actually quite clever, as they intuitively move customers who are having difficulty with the voice menus to real human beings who may be better qualified to help.

If you’re thinking of abusing verbal abuse, The Next Web warns that you’ll just be transferred to the correct department by a human being instead of a difficult menu system–you won’t necessarily get faster service if you swear when you’re waiting in a queue. And, as always, try to be courteous to flesh-and-blood tech support.